"TAKE . NOT . FROM . ME .
AL . MY . STOR . AXCP . YE .
FILL . ME . VEE . SVME . MOR .
FOR . AV . TO . BORROV .
AND . NEVER . TO . PAY .
I . CALL . THAT .
FOVLL . PLAY .
IōN WATSON 1695."
Trays and Waiters.
In olden time not very far from the dining table stood the cupboard or buffet from which evolved the sideboard. On it were displayed the cups and flagons and table appointments not actually in use. It is true the servants carried the great dishes from the kitchen, and removed the lesser vessels on trays and "waiters," and it is such trays, especially those in silver and Sheffield plate used in the last century, which are now valuable. The waiter or serving man or woman has been an essential feature in domestic service from the earliest times, for the history of society invariably records those who wait at table:—
"The waiters stand in ranks; the yeomen cry
'Make room,' as if a duke were passing by."
Swift.
It is an easy remove from the waiter to the tray or vessel on which the waiters carried the things they served up to those on whom they waited. The name "salver," commonly applied to a tray or waiter, seems to have originated from the old custom of tasting meats before they were served, to salve or save their employers from harm. Among the more valuable are the trays or waiters of silver and Sheffield plate. Trays made of iron and japanned after the fashion of Japanese metal lacquer wares, which towards the close of the eighteenth century were so largely imported into this country, are often neglected, yet many of them are truly antiquarian and by no means unlovely.
One of the chief seats of the industry was at Pontypool, but the business drifted to Birmingham. It was when the japan wares, so called from the attempt of the makers to copy the lacquers of Japan then much imported, were being successfully made amidst surroundings then exceedingly romantic in the little town singularly situated on a steep cliff overhanging the Avon Llwyd, that dealers found trays, breadbaskets, snuffer trays, knife trays, caddies, and urns much in request. In Bishopsgate Street Without, in London, there is a noted wine house known as the "Dirty Dick." This curious title was derived from the owner of a famous hardware store who kept it, and was dubbed "Dirty Dick" because of his untidy shop. The wild disorder of the establishment gave rise to a popular ballad of which the following are two of the first lines:—
"A curious hardware shop in general full
Of wares from Birmingham and Pontypool."
In addition to japanned wares there are trays of paper pulp ornamented with mother-o'-pearl and richly decorated with gold.
The Tea Table.
The modern tea table presents a much less formal array of china and good things than that of a generation or two back when high tea was an important function, and the good wife of the household loaded her table with many substantial dishes. The best china was taken from the cupboard, and family heirlooms in silver were arrayed on either side of the teapot. Needless to say the teapot was an indispensable adjunct, and some of the teapots belonging to the old sets are massive and gorgeous, rather than beautiful, although the earlier teapots made in this country in the eighteenth century, a time when tea was expensive and a real luxury, were quite small.